WD Ships 640-Gbyte Hard Drives

March 19, 2008 – 4:29 PM

Storage provider Western Digital is set to begin shipping 640-Gbyte 3.5-inch hard drives, known as the WD Caviar SE16.The new high-capacity drives are based on the 320GB-per-platter technology the company introduced in January. The new platform was designed for cool and quieter computing. Western Digital is rolling out the new technology across its product lines, including desktop, enterprise, and external hard drives.

The drives are targeted toward users of data-intensive applications, thanks to “performance with their extreme areal density, 3GB-per-second transfer rate, and Native Command Queuing (NCQ),” according to the company.

“The 640GB capacity point will be an important one for our desktop customers, and WD is leading high-volume shipments to the channel and OEM customers,” said the general manager and vice president of the company’s desktop business unit, Don Bennett, in a statement. “Two-platter hard drives have always been the perfect balance of value, capacity and performance for many of our customers. Today’s common two-platter drives are limited to 500 GB, but we are expanding capacity by 28 percent on the same design with WD’s leading technology heads and disks.”

The new 640GB drive is available now for a suggested price of $139.99.

Source: PC Magazine